I have seen a worrying trend the last years and that’s the fact that nobody on contributer/maintainer side seems to think about the low pop state of balance.
Here this PR proposes we need to move up the mortar to make it effective due to a lack of range, but well with low pop there will be no metal nor bodies leaving it defenceless.
There are a few other PR’s I can point to, but I think my point is clear enough.
I don’t really see the trend you’re describing, lowpop has simply always been xeno favoured regardless of what year you were playing- This hasn’t gotten worse or better over time.
This PR doesn’t adversely affect lowpop, it’s literally just a nerf to mortar overall and makes it more balanced, as it should be.
All the points are valid. Mortar just sitting in FOB and nuking everything willy nilly sucks for xenos. Incend is a fucking menace. Frag is pathetic. Free ASRS mortar rounds basically trivialised the cost of mortar. Having mortarmen have to frontline (which is more engaging both for marines and xenos) is soul, and actually allows for xeno counterplay to mortar.
This doesn’t specifically screw lowpop over more, because the limiting factor of the mortar on lowpop is literally IF someone actually mans it. If one person is on the mortar on lowpop, they’ll be as effective as a mortarman on highpop. If no one mans the mortar on lowpop, then… nothing changes, because even without this PR no one would’ve manned it anyways.
If you’re the mortarman (aka. FTL/engineer) and you fail to take metal with you to cade up or set up away from the protection of your fellow marines, then that’s absolutely on you.
To be perfectly honest, I actually think this adversely affects highpop more, because on lowpop we’re always either fucked in FOB sieges (so mortar stays inside anyways), or we just don’t have fire support in the first place (no one on mortar, or no one bothering to lase)
Honestly, thank god for this nerf. The 50 incin mortar shells which will have accumilated after 90 minutes of fighting on the front, to then go fob siege, is actuall hell with no counterplay.
And thank god again that you can now somewhat do anything against a mortar, other then suiciding in as a burrower.
The nerf only makes sense if all the cavern roofs in the middle of the map like Sorokyne are removed, since using Mortar is a dangerous act now (as it requires proper fall backs to use).
As for low pop, yeah… this server never balanced itself around low pop.
1/2 - Removing the RNG spawns is cool and promotes actual relation between mortar operator and req.
3 - Nerfing range will just kill the spirit of mortar and the fun of using it. The whole point of indirect fire support is to fire from a safe place and not right next to the front. Now not everyone has space to carry mats and a mortar to build pits. Shell bags have also a very low capacity so that’s another thing that ruins the mobile mortar playstyle. If you say “Ohh but you can make a mortar squad and uhhh you can have 3 men operating the mortar and carrying the ammo”. Good luck coordinating that in low pop when on high pop its sometimes hard to assemble a fireteam like that. Even in medium pop mortars don’t get up sometimes to about 0:40 round timer if there is no dedicated JTAC player deciding to devote his time of day to sit in the damn pit and wait for cords (spoiler: they sometimes never come).
4 - Incen shells could use a nerf but not a whole removal of the explosive effect that is there to open the ground up so the flames can spread. Lowering the blast radius should be enough.
5 - No opinion on the frag shells (they are a meme).
Also lets just forget about balance. A non symmetrical game with different factions and races that have completely different playstyles will never be balanced and one side will always have a problem.
this is 50 tiles to the famous choke on solaris
pretty unfeasible when you consider spitter/burrower/lurker spam
also forces engis to use up their turrets on a rather unimportant cade bunker position wise unless a squad designates a FT of like 5 marines to just… sit there…
if it were something more like 80 it would be nice, so you can still shell (most of) the colony from FOB, but also unable to spam the shit out of cave chokes
I think for most situations where you’re pushing an area, the front will be less then 50 tiles away from where you can set up.
50 tiles is like 7 screen widths, that’s a lot of range
No it will just change how its played.
I agree that its gonna be kinda clunky to use mortar on lowpop, since fronts are so mobile and mortar is a slightly static defense.
Still that’s a gameplay change that makes mortar more fightable, so its fine. Mortar is powerful enough anyway that it kinda warrants it.
it will effectively force u to use inc rounds only tho a lot of the time I think. Its also a case of “if you want mortar support, support the mortar!” just like supporting any static defense
if considering it as a light mortar or “spec” weapon then this is not that bad a change imo
I see a lot of arguments that are essentially “so it will be easier for xenos to counterplay mortar”.
Now lets see it from the marine perspective.
You’d probably have to set up some spot/box for mortar each time the front moves around, since otherwise you are essentially being a sitting duck that couldn’t even see the danger approaching with multiple screens opened.
Wooo, one less thing to do for the most action-starved squad (bravo).
It could actually take away from the entire teamplay required for the mortar, as now the mortar person could actually just play solo with the aiming/coordinates due to being present on the front.
Just hang around the medics, encourages extra backline/supply line support if you want mortar active.
Putting it up takes ~5 seconds
Wrenching it down takes ~5 seconds
The better you get at this timing and timing your shots, the better you’ll do. Assume it’ll take like 5-10 seconds to lock a coord in and u got a 20-30 second cycle sequence which is more then fast enough (if you think ahead, you’ll land it faster).
If you cycle putting it down before an encounter, you’ll be much more responsive.This makes it worse on offense, which is good for a defensive support weapon niche. Even then, it’s very very useable.
If you do want to camp out, you can bring portacades or sandbags + shovel to give yourself some extra protection
Well its one person so nothing really changes.
tbh mortar operator should be its own role.
Thats true. I don’t think its a bad thing though.
Not obsolete, flare mortar is still good. I doubt cameras will get used though you’re right.
Not a big loss tho
I think seeing mortar as similar to spec ammo in value isn’t too absurd.
I don’t understand mortar’s role anymore. By limiting the range, you turn the DEFENSIVE tool into something that has to follow the push. The mortar isn’t good at this due to the lag time between setting up, lazing, and then firing shells. By the time they land you’ll nuke the skirmishing marines. Then once xenos push the frontline, it’ll be abandoned, and won’t be used for fob siege.
The idea/niche that I think it could fit into would be simply weed and wall clearing. In the same vein, I propose that we let it shoot through cave ceilings (due to the “lower trajectory” or power which is in line with the limited range). This would allow marines to push chokes in a slow crawl sort of fashion, and promote flanking from xenos. Any buff to usability would be welcome for the mortar in its current state.
Oh yeah, let’s remove more things ASRS MIGHT send in a round to help out with offloading the burden on the already nerfed budget. You barely get 6k to 7k on budget infusions anymore as is. When the round dips into the 2+ hour mark you’re absolutely scrounging for every penny you can get in req, while still balancing spec ammo orders, AP ammo, SG drums, assuming any of these are still alive, and then your mortar costs.
There should be code in ASRS that supports sending items are different times in the round, so as the round drags on you might see more or less of something, but some rounds I barely ever see mortar shells. Some rounds I get 8 crates of cam shells in a row. Maybe an HE, there is rime or reason what ASRS sends up but at least a dime saved can be used elsewhere.
Also, cutting the range of the mortar? It’s already a bad idea on high pop to run frontline mortar since John Marine will die with it in transit or set it up and loose it 10 minutes later, while begging for req to send 81952683 shells to the front line, wasting my crates I’ll never see back, even more money wasted.
ALSO! 1 last thing to add, saying the game “Isn’t balanced around lowpop” just shows how much the opinion of your low pop players matter, there is things that can be done and should be done to make people who play during low pop enjoy it more. It’s pretty shitty to leave them out just because they don’t play the same time as you do.
Fobbit mortarmen clique… Our dream… Our life… Our gun… Soon it will belong to filthy frontline squads… We will be sat in the office chair on the LZ corner as charloids stuff our mortar full of thick shells in front of our eyes…